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Welcome to the first ever Hanukkah Blog Hop! We are so excited to be able to share with you some wonderful Hanukkah related projects. We’ll be posting 2 projects a week on Sunday’s & Wednesday’s until the first day of Hanukkah on December 9th! There are 4 of us participating so that is a total of 9 hop days for a total of 36 ideas!! Are you ready to be Hanukkah project inspired?!

Thank you to everyone who have visited the first 7 days of the hop. We hope you have enjoyed all the projects and found lots of inspiration! If this is your first visit, go back and visit Day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7.

Wow…totally loving Miriams take on Hanukkah gifts. I love washer jewelry and as a gal with long bangs I love barettes too! Thanks Miriam for sharing that.

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Hanukkah Houses…ready for occupancy!

So…is Hanukkah in your House yet? Yep it’s in mine…at least I’ve created my own Hanukkah Houses that are filled with goodies to aid in the celebration. Initially my first thought was that if you had someone living far away…perhaps a son or daughter in college…who would be late getting home to celebrate…you could send off a little package with candles and a small menorah…maybe a gift or two to tide them over until they could get home to share with the family. (whew…that was a run on sentence if ever there was one!)

By making the box in the shape of a house I thought it would also be a potent reminder of hearth and home. So I took out an idea from my 2011 convention file that I used last year to make my Big House. Then…I saw a video by fellow demo Kelly Kittelfinger. She’d taken the same house pattern I’ve used before and altered it slightly for size and ease of construction. Brilliant gal also figured out how to get two mini houses out of 1 sheet of paper! That sent me down another path…neighbor gifts! There are so many opportunities to share the love and what better occasion than Hanukkah. Of course you can also make a whole little village just to add to your own house’s decor.

First up the Neighbor gifts:

Basic Cookie Wrap with Window

all images and die cuts copyright Stampin’ Up!

Start simple…or go slightly larger. The single cookie pack is the one that was supposed to be included with my table setting from Day 6 of the hop. Oops. I think I mentioned that I wanted to send guests home with a sweet treat to kindle the thoughts and memories of the celebration. Works for a neighbor gift as well. Or at a luncheon, in a lunchbox, anytime really that you need a thinking of you type gift. After all…who doesn’t like cookies. Of course Miriams lovely gifts would fit in here too. 😀 You can even add a star ornament tag if you happen to have gone overboard with the star folds like yours truly.

Die cut window frame using Big Shot and Window Frame Framelits placing the die in the middle section of the three scored sections. Fold around cookie and tie with ribbon (add a bit of sticky strip or snail to the back flap to help hold closed if desired. Stamp Hello image (or other) from Friendship Preserves. Die cut with framelit and attach with glue dot.

Similar packets can be made with 12×12 sheets. Depending on the size of the cookie cut into 4″ x12″ or 3″ x 9″ and score in thirds. I split the difference in sizing in my packets.

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Going a little more upscale here’s my Hanukkah House mini gift boxes for friends and neighbors.

All images and die cuts copyright Stampin’ Up!

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All images and die cuts copyright Stampin’ Up!

This little Shalom Cookie House continues the cookie theme and I think is my favorite. I love the simplicity. Even without the little scallop ribbon tab it’s very cute. With the cookies wrapped in saran wrap you don’t even have to put a cover in the window. The only thing cuter would be if I had made cookies using our Stampin’ Up Cookie Stamps. The house will accomodate 2-3 cookies about 3″in diameter (possibly a little bit larger)

All images and die cuts copyright Stampin’ Up!

Here’s the little menorah house that at the moment is holding a set of candles and a star tag. Appropriate don’t you think? I loosened the roof and added an interior picture so you can get a feel for how the little house works. Kelli designed the mini’s to hold 3×3 post-it pads so anything that runs about that size will fit perfectly. I found I was able to get about 20 candles in the box along with the star tag.

Of course with such a small amount of designer series paper used you could take advantage of our digital Hanukkah themed papers in the Hanukkah Happiness download and get quite a few parts for mini houses out of a single printed sheet.

These guys are so much fun to make you’ll find it hard to stop. Takes about 10-15 minutes each once you get the hang of it. Our Festival of Prints papers are turning out to be quite adaptable too. When I first got the pack I thought of them as Christmas papers…then started looking closer and discovered over half of the designs would also work for Hanukkah! Hooray! Multiculteral paper designs. I love it! Of course these little houses will work all year round for any occasion in any color.

I originally intended to put a small menorah inside but my mini has gone walkabout as our Australian sister demos say. Pretty easy to find this time of year though if you are looking for one. Means a trip to town though. In the meantime I’ve filled my little house with a cookie, tag, candles and…

.. this item from last Sunday’s post with a gift card. If I can find a small dreidel and some chocolate gelt coins I’ll be all set.

If you’d like to make a large House of your own you can find the basic directions and template on my old blog post here. Decoration and paper choices are entirely up to you. As you can see I’ve done them two ways (more actually since I made one for Valentines but never posted it. I did make one or two minor changes to the template this time around. Instead of scoring and folding the diagonals for the roof I trimmed them using my Stampin’ Trimmer (love that tool) the same as Kelly did on hers and I did the roof attachement like hers too. If you read my past post and watch Kelly’s video I think you’ll be able to figure it out. If you have any questions please email me and I’ll be happy to help.

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